Green Room

In Hawaii, gun ownership rises while violent crime falls

This is actually news from back in March, but hat tip to Reason for bringing it to light. Do you suppose there’s a correlation here? Maybe?

Hawaii firearms registrations shot up more than 70 percent in 2012, while gun violence continued a four-year decline, according to a new state Department of the Attorney General report.

“While there has been a tremendous increase in firearm registration activity in Hawaii since 2000, the annual trends for both the number of firearm-related violent crimes and the proportion of violent crimes involving firearms relative to other weapon types remained stable within a low and narrow range through 2007, and decreased substantially from 2008 through 2012, during which time registration activity increased the most sharply,” the Department of the Attorney concluded.

Officials processed a record 21,864 state and county firearm permits in 2012, the report found. One year before, that number was 15,375.

Hawaii law allows multiple long guns to be registered under one permit. That brought the total number of firearms registered in 2012 to 50,394, a 73 percent increase from the previous record high of 36,804 firearms registered in 2011.

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Well, in the spirit of honesty, this doesn’t prove that higher rates of gun ownership decreases crime, since crime was falling previously. What it does help to do is disprove the attack that more guns=more crime.

I was a beat cop on Oahu. What gun violence are they talking about? I only left a couple years ago and there was hardly any gun violence. The vast majority of assaults were “skin on skin.” And the annual homicide rate in the entire state is usually anywhere from 10 to 20. So, I call BS on this. Any “local kine” here that can tell me things have changed that much?

Well, in the spirit of honesty, this doesn’t prove that higher rates of gun ownership decreases crime, since crime was falling previously. What it does help to do is disprove the attack that more guns=more crime.

Donald Draper on July 24, 2013 at 8:41 PM

decreased substantially from 2008 through 2012, during which time registration activity increased the most sharply,” the Department of the Attorney concluded.

No according to the libs, this should turn into the old west in 3..2..1……….. What, nothing is happening?! Do people know how to control themselves? That cant be? I know, the government has not yet let the word out that the shootings may commence. “sheesh”

Yet another reason I want to move there. I hear from friends there that Hawaii is an awful lot like it is here, except more peaceful and orderly. You can’t have a gun to save your immortal soul in Puerto Rico, at least not legally. Not coincidentally, our violent crimes are through the roof and it’s not safe to walk down the tourist strip in broad daylight. Just two days ago a friend was telling me how someone tried to rape her – at noon on a Saturday – in front of the Capitol building – with the cops twenty steps away – and they did not even intervene or apparently notice.

If an increase in gun ownership has no correlation with an increase in violent crime, then it follows a decrease in gun ownership would not result in less crime. Meaning that gun control is, like all progressive policies, based on intentions and not reality.

Beautiful place – got married there and hope to retire there. Still, guns are needed, even in paradise.

RedNewEnglander on July 24, 2013 at 7:18 PM

Dunno. I spent three years at Schofield Barracks on Oahu when I was in the Army. From my perspective, Hawaii is a nice place to visit, but I don’t think I’d want to retire there. What you don’t see during brief stints as a tourist are the underlying factors, like liberal Democrats having a stranglehold on local politics, relatively strict gun control, failing public schools, high taxation, higher costs for just about everything, horrendous traffic with insufficient infrastructure, etc. Basically, Hawaii has all the same problems as California, with the added factor that you are on a rock in the middle of the Pacific, and once you’ve seen all the touristy stuff, you can start going stir crazy very quickly. It gets old.